Twitter release an updated client for iOS which puts a large black hashtag bar across the top of the screen which results in users complaining bitterly that the functionality of the app had been sacrificed to the demands of monetization.
This morning I awoke to an update from someone whose long established Twitter username had been claimed by an organization who post-dated the person’s use of that username but who were a registered commercial entity.
The thing which they have in common is that they both reflect the difference between open and proprietary platforms.
The thing which most differentiates Twitter from email is that the email we use is based around a series of open standards – RFC1939, RFC822, RFC5321 amongst others.
Twitter can change the rules at any time.
But it’s not just Twitter
I wrote earlier this week about the risk of a single point of dependency in business models, but what if that single point of dependency is in our social and personal lives instead?
Lost ConsCIOusness 
My thoughts exactly when I wrote about Audience Monopoly and the Elastic Jurisdiction.
How do we regulate and promote competition when the dominant players control the infrastructure? The dominant players control the audience, hence Audience Monopoly.
The internet crosses national boundaries, creating this Elastic Jurisdiction which is effectively impossible to regulate without international co-ordination.
@JamesFirth
Today Twitter is such an integral part of the landscape and some people s businesses that and was commented on ..The headlines are highly strung to say the least . The only model that makes sense is a distributed one it s a fundamentally harder problem to bring down a decentralized network because there isn t a single point of failure.
I’m not sure Gov’t should try to regulate Twitter, Facebook et al in this way; it would be expensive, time consuming and ultimately futile as people will vote with their feet on which apps they prefer to use.
What we *can* do is provide thought leadership and encourage an ecosystem of app developers working on more open platforms. I was at a Facebook Developers’ Garage recently and my impression was “great talent, very little leadership or vision”. We need to leverage the brightest in Generation Y and get them to change the world for us (and them), not try to do it for them through legislation.
Social technologies are moving very quickly, and IMO we’ll get most benefit by nudging things in the right direction rather than trying to turn the tide.
Twitter.gov … Hmm 🙂
No, I agree, am not proposing regulation at all, just encouraging people to think and challenge both their assumptions and business models 🙂